War, turmoil in Congo slash gorilla population

Gorillas' numbers reduced by war, turmoil in CongoExperts don't know how many apes are left today

TODD PITMAN, Associated Press

Published 6:30 am, Friday, November 26, 2004

KAHUZI-BIEGA NATIONAL PARK, CONGO - Beneath a pair of extinct volcanic peaks in eastern Congo, on the edge of a verdant tropical rain forest, an enormous silverback gorilla named Chimenuka lounges on his back, two feet propped against a tree.

The burly animal shows little interest in a small team of machete-wielding Pygmy trackers, park rangers and armed guards who've come to check on him — until they take one step too close.

In a second, the 400-pound gorilla springs upright, beating his chest, grunting and charging forward, forcing his guests to cower, before slipping away on all fours into a curtain of thick underbrush.

Dangerous work

In late October, the New York-based organization resumed a head-counting operation in Kahuzi-Biega that was called off in April when Liengola and his colleagues were forced to flee amid a firefight between rebels from neighboring Rwanda and a local pro-government militia.

Eastern lowland gorillas, the tallest apes on Earth, live only in Congo and inhabit a broad band of forests stretching from Lake Albert near the Ugandan border to the northern tip of Lake Tanganyika on the frontier with Burundi.

Conservationists say a deadly combination of poachers, refugees, miners and combat have devastated the gorillas' habitat and population — by how much, they can only speculate.

Patrick Melman, a Fossey researcher in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, acknowledges the figures are only "an estimate."

He says they are based on data available, including that from Kahuzi-Biega, where park rangers and researchers visit dozens of gorillas daily.

Areas to avoid

Speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Society's offices in Bukavu, Liengola waves a finger across a digital map of Kahuzi-Biega on his laptop computer, indicating dangerous areas he and park rangers avoid.

The screen is splattered with red blotches — no-go zones where militiamen or guerrilla fighters are active.

Bukavu, the starting point for tours of Kahuzi-Biega, was itself ravaged by fighting between rebels and government loyalists this summer.

Despite Kahuzi-Biega's status as a park, Pygmies have regularly trooped in illegally to hunt for bush meat to feed their families.

But things took a dramatic turn for the worse in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when millions of refugees, soldiers and militiamen fled across the border and cut down huge swaths of forest to survive.

The crisis deepened with Congo's own wars — first in 1996-97 and again in 1998-2002. The fighting led to a severe breakdown of authority and opened the gorillas' habitat up to the Mayi Mayi militia, as well as miners in search of gold and other precious minerals.

Miners and militiamen cut down trees to put up makeshift houses for their families. They also hunted game, including great apes, for food.